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My earliest memories of my childhood are on the stern of the Nautica, Atlantica.. and i did get on the Nordica...leaving port in Port aux Basques..watching them load unload ..waving to tourist ..not to mention the rough weather ...Say what you like those ship's are tough and solid ....fine sailing vessel's..

Marine Atlantic switched them out for more speed ,ice breaking capability ,passenger and vehicle volume..

They were good ship's took everything the North Atlantic could throw at them ..many times they came into either Sydney or Port aux Basques after a storm ..more fuel and dishes ..turn and go again ....

Hi Simon .I have started a build thread on Finnjetweb forum http://www.finnjetweb.com/ I could do a thread on hear if people want it. I have only just started her . The prop shaft's are made to look like the real one. I am doing her in her 1986 livery. It going to be a slow build due to building a new kitchen .john

Hi Martin and Simon I am in Ireland for work when I get back I will start a thread. Simon go for it get a Finnjet. To say she was a power house she could do 33.5 knots and hit this in only 3 MIN that nearly 40 000 tones o to 33.5. There is no other ferry in the world like her and sadly it looks like there never will be she was a one off. For more on her go tohttp://www.finnjetweb.com/en/ .

I am sorely tempted to give this one a go. However, with so much interest in this thread that I started, it is a great pity that complete ferry kits in a larger scale aren't produced by some of the model manufacturers out there. I think this thread proves without doubt that if such kits were available they would sell like hot cakes! It seems like a perfect business opportunity to me. I would love to build something like the Brittany Ferries Pont Aven. Maybe someone might take the hint?! Boat kits are now of such high quality and accuracy that I'm sure a car ferry kit or two could be achieved with reasonable ease by an innovative company. I'd be interested to hear others views on this matter...

Hi Simon If you look at the market. An average ferry has a length of 150m to 200m. One of the most common scales is 1:100 ,this would put kits in a bracket were most people with an average sized car would struggle or not manage. So now we all ready have a smaller market. Ok change the scale then you risk going in to odd ball scale country were most people wont want to know. Look at the plastic kit market were a kit is made in an odd ball sized scale ,never been a good seller.On the market there are 5 big ferry kits .2 by Deans 3 by 2 German manufacturers. Deans want's about £700 for Celestine and the German manufacture wants just over €1000 euro for Superfast . Until the pound crashed , give and take were about the same price. So to make a big ferry kit it going to be a round that amount of money which limits the market reach.The ship its self which do you choose so many do you go very modern or 1980 or 1990 which operator. One thing they have in common is they are ALL TOP HEAVY. This means your average molder would struggle on it . Doesn't look good for a manufacture that sell a kit that sinks easily .Livery you might fine an operator wants a big revenue slice to use there name or the might not like there name on the side of a badly made model doesn't look good for them.Add all this togther you fine it a very limited market. On Mayhem I know of 5 ferry modlers/intusates out of 3095 members. If i was a manufactor of a kit I cerently would not look at making a kit a hull/plans may be.As for your plastic kit makers if the ever did decide to make a ferry ask this question. What scale will the choose . I would say 1:400 or 1:600. Finnjet is 214m long she is the world's 4 longest ferry so if the did make a ferry it going to be small and very top heavy making conversion very hard. Yes they could up it to 1:350 but Revell are very aware how much QM2 cost them to make and she has a wider market appeal that a car ferry. Sorry to say it's Finnjet or mega bucks.Just out of interest what ferry would you like made in to a kit and at what scale John

ZZ56

Actually, the best scales for a ferry would be 1:87 or 1:160, as these let you use model railroad vehicles and people. Don't know of any 1:100 scale autos.

There's nobody saying you can't have a big ferry, Simon, just that you'll have to build it yourself. Which sounds a lot more intimidating than it actually is, given that you're already on this site with all the expert builders at your fingertips!

I stand by my theory that due to the number of viewings of this subject (over 3000) there is latent interest in the idea of car ferry kits. Something like 1/200 scale might be a possibility, but for me I'd buy anything at a reasonable price and size. The top heavy "problem" shouldn't be a difficulty in the 21st Century; there will be ways to cure that. As someone once said to me: "there are no problems, only solutions". I'm sure if a manufacturer did some market research via this forum (alone) they would find sufficient numbers of people interested to justify producing a kit. I also feel that the price range should not exceed £450. As I said in my earlier posting I would like a ferry such as the "Pont Aven" or one of the more contemporary Stena Line vessels. I think the kit should be of a more contemporary design as most passenger ship kits seem to be much older.

I'm sure it would be possible to do a ferry kit but from the viewpoint of the manufacturer why pick something that would be quite technically demanding when you can play safe with a prototype which is inherently much more stable and would almost certainly sell more units? There may have been over 3000 viewings on the topic but a lot of them will be people like me who have viewed it a number of times.

As ZZ56 says, why not build one yourself and take all the credit! It can be done as this pic of the Brittany Ferries model seen at Warwick demonstrates. It wasn't named as such but is obviously meant to be the Bretagne and had lots of working features.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to scratch build a model such as the one in your photo. However, I don't have the time or skill to do this, sadly. I hear what you and others are saying about the financial/technical implications of producing such a kit are, but take the model railway business as an example of what I'm going on about. One very well known and excellent model railway manufacturer has shown incredible innovation and courage in producing pretty obscure prototype locos in 4mm; one such loco is an eight coupled freight engine which a few years ago would have been unthinkable as a ready to run model (most would have said that it would be sheer madness to attempt such a loco). Yet it has sold incredibly well and is a superb model and very reasonably priced. Even enthusiasts who were not interested in the class have bought the model because it is so beautifully made and accurate. Boat kits might not have such a large market as model railways (I don't know that for a fact of course) but there is probably something in this ethos. I suppose it is creating a demand by totally surprising the public with a lovely kit that they just have to have!

Yes, I'm afraid you are right - model boating is the poor relation. The markets for railways, flying and military modelling are many times the size of ours. The loco you mention has clearly generated its own market but as the pool is so much bigger the manufacturers are taking less of a risk.